SBR 006

EX EASTER ISLAND HEAD

February 2016

Ex Easter Island Head returned to Samarbeta following the success of their initial residency with the BBC Philharmonic ensemble in April/May of 2015 which resulted in the group preparing a brand new composition and performing it alongside a BBC Philharmonic Ensemble at Sounds From the Other City festival 2015. This time they returned and spent 10 days at Islington Mill with the main aim of developing the Large Electric Ensemble with musicians from the local experiment music scene. The group had previously done a similar project with musicians from Nottingham

EEIH are a Liverpool based trio, composing and performing music for solid-body electric guitar, percussion and other instruments. Incorporating multiple prepared electric guitars struck with percussion mallets and treated as an infinitely variable sound-source as well as drawing on an arsenal of cymbals, bells and acoustic percussion. Ex-Easter Island Head devise works that explore group interplay, repetition and melodic invention through purposefully limited means.

EEIH worked with a handpicked selection of local guitarists from a variety of musical backgrounds and composed a new piece that will see the groups' unique vocabulary of extended techniques deployed on a mass scale. Drawing influence from the ensemble-wide tunings of gamelan, change-ringing patterns, and the harmonic possibilities afforded by massed amplified strings, EEIH created an ambitious, long form work for multiple prepared guitars, basses, and percussion.